Marvel Legends Preorders - When and Where

I'm up by 5:30a every day for work so I was able to be on Target's site at 6am. But I only got Storm; the thicker pinless legs and double jointed elbows on Mystique look great but are they $33 (after tax and shipping) great? Not really. The Walgreen's Mystique is standing fine on the shelf with the rest of the Brotherhood, and in that context this one wouldn't really have looked any different. I'm tired of buying figures over and over for slight upgrades. Maybe the next time they re-release this Mystique with another slight improvement I'll get it. Or not.

I've got the new Mystique today (UK-based). Honestly think I might prefer the Walgreens lighter blue Mystique on the shelf.

renfield75 said:

I'm tired of buying figures over and over for slight upgrades.

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This is where I'm right now too. I've bought way more than I should have. I've been a sucker for buying all the pinless figures to replace the old pinned ones and now I'm beginning to get mad at myself for doing it.

It only gets worse as Hasbro seems to be doubling and tripling down on repeating the same characters over and over and doing less and less new characters, which is all I really care about anymore after more than 20 years collecting this line. While we've still had a little more than dozen or so new characters this year, I feel like this is the worst that it's been in a while. I thought that 2023 was a great year, but it's certainly gone the wrong way for me since then.

I'm going to try to be more firm with myself to only allow myself to buy one "upgrade" of a character that I already own for every 2 brand new characters that I buy and be far choosier about it. That would cut down my spending on figures by A LOT, probably by something nearing 80%. That would probably take me from buying around 130 or so Legends per year to like 30.

Reno said:

This is where I'm right now too. I've bought way more than I should have. I've been a sucker for buying all the pinless figures to replace the old pinned ones and now I'm beginning to get mad at myself for doing it.

It only gets worse as Hasbro seems to be doubling and tripling down on repeating the same characters over and over and doing less and less new characters, which is all I really care about anymore after more than 20 years collecting this line. While we've still had a little more than dozen or so new characters this year, I feel like this is the worst that it's been in a while. I thought that 2023 was a great year, but it's certainly gone the wrong way for me since then.

I'm going to try to be more firm with myself to only allow myself to buy one "upgrade" of a character that I already own for every 2 brand new characters that I buy and be far choosier about it. That would cut down my spending on figures by A LOT, probably by something nearing 80%. That would probably take me from buying around 130 or so Legends per year to like 30.

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This. I have to REALLY love a character to upgrade just because it's pinless. I made the decision with this Mystique that I wasn't going to buy her unless she winds up being clearanced at some point. I'll just keep my Walgreens figure on the shelf for the foreseeable future.

Reno said:

That would probably take me from buying around 130 or so Legends per year to like 30.

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See, this sort of thing helps me keep stuff in perspective. My whole collection of figures, ML and others, is just at 150. And even there I still feel like I could scale back. I'm so happy my biggest wants are all covered now. I could go hog-wild if money and space weren't an issue, but I'm happy to relax into a "only if it's amazing" mode for this line.

Yeah, I couldn't even tell you how many total Legends figures I have. I have at least one version of every single character ever made by Hasbro, Toy Biz or Diamond in this relative scale. This is also true for DC from DC Direct, Mattel and McFarlane. I also collect other lines, but nowhere near to the same degree (Spawn, MOTU Masterverse, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Power Rangers, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, Star Wars Black Series, GI Joe Classified, One Piece, My Hero Academia, Witcher, TMNT, etc). It's a mental illness.

Reno said:

Yeah, I couldn't even tell you how many total Legends figures I have. I have at least one version of every single character ever made by Hasbro, Toy Biz or Diamond in this relative scale. This is also true for DC from DC Direct, Mattel and McFarlane. I also collect other lines, but nowhere near to the same degree (Spawn, MOTU Masterverse, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Power Rangers, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, Star Wars Black Series, GI Joe Classified, One Piece, My Hero Academia, Witcher, TMNT, etc). It's a mental illness.

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I started putting all my stuff (not just toys, but blue-rays, books, etc) all into a spreadsheet a couple of years ago and it has *really* helped curb my spending habits (well, and seeing my mom's hoarder house, that helps too). Being able to see it all laid out helps me wrap my head around it and keep the collection specific to me but manageable.

I need this Mystique for the card! She's going right on my wall. I need at least one for that, BUT I'm going try carefully opening her and swapping in the Walgreens figure, who can't stand, into this package and putting it on my wall. Two problems solved, one figure!

But I forgot - I gave Walgreen's Mystique someone's heels, which looked way better (and is not why she can't stand - she had trouble before that). Maybe I'll swap and then swap.

Schizm said:

I need this Mystique for the card! She's going right on my wall. I need at least one for that, BUT I'm going try carefully opening her and swapping in the Walgreens figure, who can't stand, into this package and putting it on my wall. Two problems solved, one figure!

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Mostly just collect the retro cards for the packaging like you said. Which leads to buying one to open and one to keep packaged for the wall.

JakeEkiss said:

See, this sort of thing helps me keep stuff in perspective. My whole collection of figures, ML and others, is just at 150. And even there I still feel like I could scale back. I'm so happy my biggest wants are all covered now. I could go hog-wild if money and space weren't an issue, but I'm happy to relax into a "only if it's amazing" mode for this line.

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Whenever I see Reno post about scaling back, I'm like, wait, why? But I only buy ~20 Legends per year. It's all a matter of perspective.

JakeEkiss said:

I started putting all my stuff (not just toys, but blue-rays, books, etc) all into a spreadsheet a couple of years ago and it has *really* helped curb my spending habits (well, and seeing my mom's hoarder house, that helps too). Being able to see it all laid out helps me wrap my head around it and keep the collection specific to me but manageable.

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Are you me?

We should all have an eBay store with 10-30 items for sale at all times. We aren’t getting any younger. How on earth does anyone like EVERY costume / character / execution releases for all times. ?

PanchaMaestro said:

We should all have an eBay store with 10-30 items for sale at all times. We aren’t getting any younger. How on earth does anyone like EVERY costume / character / execution releases for all times. ?

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I'd had an ebay store for several years but just recently closed it down for a few months due to the economy and tax implications. I was allowed 1,000 Buy It Now listings at one time under the store tier I paid for (27.95 per month) and I tried to always stay as close to that as possible. As a side gig, it's fine. I'd spend around 8-12 hours on it per week and in 2023 I easily made over $1,000 per month, but then the new mandatory reporting kicked in for those ebay transactions in 2024 and I got hosed on my tax bill since I didn't have enough in deductions to itemize (even with my mortgage!). If I understand correctly the Trump administration has reversed that rule for 2026 and beyond. I'm hoping that's true and if so, I'll re-open again in January 2026.

However, my friends that still have their stores open have told me that their sales have fallen off a cliff over the past few months as the economy has been struggling. A lot of my sales were international too (where ebay charges the international shipping and sends it) and I have no idea how the tariffs / trade wars have impacted that recently. Locally here in central Iowa, I know that my local comic book store owner tells me that he has been having an average of about 3 customer per week call and cancel their pull lists because they'd been laid off. It's bad. My youngest son graduated college in May of 2024 and still has never found a full time job. He's been working multiple part-time gigs the whole time while applying for hundreds of jobs and usually hearing nothing.

I've teetered on downsizing the collection to the latest/best version of a specific costume/character. Clearing out the previous Hasbro Mystique and the Toy Biz one, for example. The Toy Biz Astonishing Team can go soon... I mean 80% of the Toy Biz stuff has been replaced, essentially. A lot of the original Hasbro offerings are also now irrelevant.

I just have to be OK with the fact that most of these older figures will not fetch even what I paid retail at the time. Most have aged... poorly.

I've only just recently hit the panicky "I should start selling stuff, huh" stage (though it sounds like that'd just be a space thing than a profit thing given we're about to tank the economy). I started collecting late so it took a while to hit critical mass, but also (I know I've told the story on the boards at some point) a house fire wiped me out in my 20s so I basically had no collection til I was in my 40s. Which makes me, admittedly, VERY VERY neurotic about divesting stuff I care about cos I always just kinda expect another disaster to clear it out for me again. (My partner always laughs that she can hear me checking the house for fire / flooding risks at 3 a.m. to this day.)

100% a space thing. The money part just means you lost a little less collecting what you liked over the years. If your personal collecting is intaking that much that's a separate issue. Does it all spark joy? I mean I'm not talking shit or anything. I'm on this board too. Just offering self reflection.